Beset by angry hecklers in Israel's parliament, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon vowed Monday to push ahead with his plan to withdraw settlers from the Gaza Strip. Speaking as lawmakers reconvened for their autumn session, the beleaguered prime minister acknowledged that "this house will be required to make very difficult decisions over the coming weeks." Sharon set Oct.

Testifying Wednesday before the commission investigating the World Trade Center attack, former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani defended emergency response efforts, telling panel members: "There was not a problem of coordination on Sept. 11, 2001."

A former Little Saigon video shop owner who once triggered weeks of noisy protests when he displayed communist icons in his business reemerged Tuesday as a voice of dissent against a resolution aimed at keeping delegates from the Socialist Republic of Vietnam from visiting the immigrant community. More than 100 shouting demonstrators gathered Tuesday as Truong Van Tran stood on the steps of Westminster City Hall, where he held a disjointed press conference that turned into a yelling match.

Armando Benitez leans back in the chair at his locker, as if trying to distance himself from the question, the memory, the city. New York? Don't ask. That's last season, 1,300 miles away and receding in the rearview mirror. "I don't want to say anything about New York," Benitez says, waving his arms to fend off the subject. Ask instead about this season with the Florida Marlins, the 10 for 10 start in save chances, the 0.48 ERA through 17 games. Ask about spending the first month in first place.

President Pervez Musharraf was drowned out by booing and jeering opponents Saturday in his first speech to parliament since seizing power in a coup in 1999. Some opponents walked out of the joint session of parliament shortly after the general began speaking. Others drowned out his words with shouts of "Down with dictatorships!" and "Go, Musharraf, go!"

President Bush delivered a personal "thank you" to Australia today, telling a joint session of the Australian Federal Parliament that "we value, more than ever, the unbroken friendship between the Australian and American peoples." But a vocal minority in the chamber were less enamored of the American president than he was with them.

He stood before them speaking of solidarity, introducing himself with words from the Bible: "I am Joseph, your brother." But Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut was pelted with jeers as he brought his quest for the Democratic presidential nomination to an Arab American leadership conference in this Detroit suburb on Friday. "Go home to Tel Aviv," one woman called in disgust as Lieberman, an Orthodox Jew, cast Israelis as victims of Palestinian terrorism. "No! No! No!"

Activists jeered South African Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang as she opened a national AIDS conference in Durban. Activists say the disease kills 600 South Africans a day, and some held up signs reading "Save Our Youth, Save Our Future, Treat AIDS Now." Critics say South Africa has moved too slowly on AIDS and decry its refusal to permit public-sector hospitals to use antiretroviral drugs.

When a homeless man named "Jackal" challenged the candidates for mayor here last fall to sample life on the streets, Tom Bates accepted. Now Bates is mayor and, after a night camping in a park behind City Hall, he said he can see much more clearly the plight facing an estimated 1,200 of his constituents. As for the homeless themselves? They alternately heckled, embraced and confronted Bates during his roughly 24 hours last week rubbing elbows with the common man.

Former Assembly speaker and mayoral candidate Antonio Villaraigosa formally announced he will run for Los Angeles' 14th District council seat Thursday, even as he faced down hecklers supporting the incumbent, Councilman Nick Pacheco. The race to represent parts of Boyle Heights, Highland Park, Mt. Washington and Eagle Rock is expected to be costly and hard-fought. Villaraigosa was heckled by several Pacheco supporters during a news conference at Roosevelt High School.